Sports Books

Interesting that there's such diverse opinion on this book. I'm in the camp that was disappointed and frustrated. Surely it's a well-intentioned project, and there's lots of information here, but it seems poorly processed - just thrown at the reader, almost as if the author is just showing off her anatomical knowledge. To me the writing is a bit dry and doesn't make the material real, doesn't really relate the knowledge to working with actual bodies. Too much unconnected fact and speculation, not enough energetic personality. I was also irritated that the discussion of the more ethereal, ancient concepts such as the bandhas are presented in the same breath as the medical information, and aren't explained in any depth. I'm on my second read because I'm waiting for new material that I've ordered from the States, but it's sometimes like working with a hostile witness, trying to glean the information that I need.

Susi did a great job of compiling key components of asana instruction and putting in an easily accessible, spiral bound book. She has a clear, succinct style which I find helpful for those who don't have time to sift through the ancient tomes. I have used it to develop my teaching programs.

I was glad that this book was technical enough to help the serious yoga teacher. The drawing made it easy for me to learn. The spiral binding made it easy to use while watching students or myself. The author is clearly incredibly knowledgeable. The pictures and the format made the book fun to look at for a visual learner.

This comprehensive text is dense with information. Although only a few pages, the book is chock full of insightful tips on yoga practice. Aldous uses a multi-sensory approach that I found practical and enlightening. I recommend it for the practioner who needs to feed the brain a bit more information while struggling with "impossible" postures. The manual has a spiral binding for easy use while practicing asanas.

Anatomy and Asana is quite an accomplishment. I took a university course on yoga, and recommended that this text be added to the required reading. Any serious student of yoga, and all instructors, should have this book as a resource. The information is clearly and concisely presented, with illustrations and brief meditative quotes throughout. I agree with the reader below that it complements Coulter's much larger book "The Anatomy of Hatha Yoga" well, and would add, that if you found his text daunting, start here. What makes "Anatomy and Asana" more accessible is that it was created to accompany a live workshop, and has more of a "workbook/presentation" feel. That said, it's amazing how much information is on these pages. You will refer to this yoga resource for years to come.

This book is organized such that each chapter is devoted to a single milestone of Breashears' life. In each case he gives a general overview of that milestone, along with a few descriptive details of particular situations. But mostly, it is an OVERVIEW of the experiences that made him the man that he is today. After my initial disappointment that the book wasn't as detailed as I had hoped it would be, I accepted it the way that it was and truly enjoyed the rest of it.

A short, climb-heavy, autobiography about famous filmmaker/climber David Breashears, High Exposure captures the imagination with it's simple, sparse narrative style. The story follows the author from his youth as an army brat traveling from base to base with his mother, siblings, and an abusive father, to his apprenticeships on the rock faces of the American west, where he gradually earned the respect and admiration of his fellow climbers, to his eventual travel to the Himalaya, and his work there as cameraman for numerous expeditions.

Breashears doesn't write with the lyrical style of a Greg Child, or the novelist/journalist style of a Kraukauer, or the heavy human-interest angle of a Jim Curran. Rather, his writing is simple, easy to digest, and paints stark pictures of a life in the mountains. In fact, the climbing descriptions are first-rate, and he discusses pitches he's ascended, their difficulty, the challenges overcome, and the lessons learned. I was struck by the attention-to-detail he reveals in his writing, and this book gives you that 'you are there' feel more than any of the other aforementioned writers - and leaves you hungering for more.

Out of the probable fifty books I've read on mountaineering in the Himalayas, I would rank this as one of the finest. While reading, Breashears does a first-rate job of capturing the exhilaration, fear, sense of accomplishment and dedication that climbing one of these giant peaks brings to those who attempt it.

Highly recommended.

What an incredible book. Once you start reading it, you won't be able to set it down. I even got yelled at by my boss for reading the book on company time. I've read it 4 times and each time is like the first time. There is alot of information to process so get ready be blown away. It's awsome. Also, if you missed reading Tino Georgiou's masterpiece--The Fates, go and read it.

I've read several mountain climbing/Everest books lately and this is in the top half of that list. That having been said, as one reviewer noted, it was more interesting than gripping, and for all the ability to give a auto-biographical look at a world class climber, it didn't really capture the drama of the climb. Since reading about it is about as close as I'm ever going to get to doing it, I need something that makes me feel the cold and the wind and the struggle for air. This was more of a narrative retelling, and emotion is overly removed from the story.

Everest is almost as much of a protagonist as Breashears himself, and it was indeed very interesting to read about the history, about the other expeditions, and about the call on the author that brought him to climbing as a life. It was enough, and I recommend the book without reservation, but I would say read "Into Thin Air" if you are looking for a more powerful and exciting retelling of an Everest climb.

As a young man, David Breashears looked at a photo of Tenzing Norgay standing atop Mount Everest. He knew at once that he wanted to pursue mountain climbing. His dedication drew him to hone his skill until climbing became his life and Mt. Everest in particular, "etched itself in the landscape of his soul". I look at a photo of someone standing in -65 degree weather, punishing their bodies to the limits of what a human can endure and think, "Wow, people do the damndest things, don't they?" This book provides insight into a life filled with a passion I will never feel.
It is not easy to live a life dedicated to mountain climbing and still earn enough money to allow you to follow your dream. David explains how he was able to succeed and live well by discovering he could become a specialist in climbing photography.
The story of his life is compelling. He grows up with an abusive father, who almost completely disappears from the family's life when the mother divorces him. David swears to never become like his father and sets off to make his way in life driven by his need to climb. He lives rough, works at the most menial jobs, and studies his calling. He totally rejects the cruelty he saw in his father, and totally embraces his love of climbing. His is a most unusual life. As attested to in many other books, there is plenty of drama on a shear face or Himalaya climb. But not every moment of climbing is as fascinating to me as it is to those who love this sport. The proper use of various alpine tools is no doubt a life and death issue, but parts of these discussions failed to hold my interest. Still, it is a fascinating book. There is poignancy in the fact that even though David vows to not become like his father, he distances himself from his wife until the marriage simply melts into nothing. The relationships he likes best are those formed on climbing expeditions; brief, intense, soon over. He is the quintessential "guy's guy". I don't usually look to autobiographies for great writing. And while the writing in this book is competent, it is the story that keeps it compelling. This is a look at a fascinating life, a saga that allows the "rest of us" a glimpse into a life obsessed with mountains.

This book provided alot of helpful insight from the mind of an individual who has already achieved success in the field I want to pursue myself. This is a good book to read if you're curious to see a realistic day-in-the-life look at the entrepreneurial track of fitness training. It also gives good tips for those that wish to work in established gyms as well; however, the entrepreneurial info is what reeled me in.

I really enjoyed reading this "Dummies" book. The author put lots of practical stories that really made the points. While I won't be training others for profit, I've already started working with other missionaries that want to get healthy. The book already has given me several ideas about how to work better.

This book does not really teach you the basics of becoming a personal trainer, but yet it teaches you how to start your business as a personal trainer. Was not what I thought based on the title.

Not really what I was looking for, but I started reading and its a great book, I really recomended to all beginners and experience, it has all the information you'll ever need, trully a well written and great referance book to have.

This is a very easy to read primer for those considering a career or hobby in personal fitness. It gives a nice overview of what the career is like and what it will take to gain a certificate and proceed to line up those all important clients. I also learned a few things that can be incorprated into my own liftness lifestyle.

This is a fantastic product. My boys at 6yrs and 8yrs both love this.We take it to the park and picnics etc. Overall great fun for any age. I would highly recommend it.

I'm waiting til summer to try this out with my grandson, but it looks awesome.. i can't wait!!!

My husband, I and our 7 year-old love this bubble book and wand. There is a recipe in the book for the bubble liquid and it works great. The wand is easy to use, and is easy enough that my daughter can make HUGE bubbles. This is my new "birthday gift" for kids. A great outdoor activity for the whole family! (Hint: Buy an extra wand...it's worth it!) The Amazon.com price for the book was the best I had found in April '08 when I bought it.

Brings back many fond memories of when I was a child. I had this same book and kit. I spent many many many hours blowing bubbles and entertaining the younger children in the neighborhood. Same great quality and easy to read book that teaches techniques and facts. The best bubble making formula has changed though, so don't go buy the ingredients until you read the new formula.

We have had a lot of fun with this product. The recipe for the bubble solution is easy and can be stored for weeks and it only takes a little practice to get the hang of making the big bubbles. Granted, I haven't had luck with making the 10 ft. bubbles they mention in the book, but you can get some really big ones! Keep in mind that humid weather is essential for these bubbles, if it's too dry it gets frustrating. We have had ours for a couple years and it still works great (just rinse the solution out of the wand when you're done) so I've started buying them as gifts. We love it!

The book scales the island down in a very nice way and is easy to follow. Heed their water safety and driving with "aloha" tips. Squirts out all the best things to do and made our daily itinerary decisions slamdunks.

Take it with you on the road. I strongly recommend seeing the Hana Highway in a convertible. Our twisty ride out there in the early morning was awesome.

The places we did get to check out were awesome. I know we wouldn't have found the "aquarium" without this book and that was our favorite snorkel spot. I wish we had more time in maui to explore.

Where this one shines: compact and to the point, definitely our style. It covers all of the island and the hikes they list inside Haleakala Crater and near Hana were terrific. Bring your binoculars for the whale and windsurfer action. We had several guides with us, but the most consistent useful information came from this one.

Friends asked us how we saw and experienced so much in just a week and we attribute it to doing our homework first - mapping it all out with the Trailblazer.

Beaches are the reason we went to Maui and this was the guide we used to find them. There were several dozen to higrade. When we arrived we noticed many of the street signs were missing or twisted the wrong way so we navigated using the maps and mile markers in the Trailblazer guide. Even our rental car map didn't have the detailed streets this book had.

We have three kids and they spent hours and hours boogieboarding and their UV protected rashguards that we also bought on Amazon paid off plenty. The bike tours were closed so we hiked in Haleakala State Park. Trail distances we needed and trail distances we got. We felt like we were on another planet. They suggested we bring warm clothes and water, thank goodness we did.

Organized, detailed, dangerous places to avoid, the advice was priceless. This was our first time on Maui and this book really did blaze the trail.

We decided to visit two islands because we had heard how different they were: Maui and the Big Island. We chose the trailblazer books to guide us since they were both crammed with incredibly helpful information. For hikers and snorkelers and sightseers they are a gold mine. They are written in clear language and the outings are well arranged with accompanying maps.

The tips for getting out to Hana were treasure trove status and put us out in front of the chain of cars we saw heading out at 2pm. Leaving at 7:30 am before the tour buses made all the difference. We could have used another few days on Maui and regret taking only one hike down into the crater. We plan another visit in 2009 and our first order of business will be watching the sunrise on Haleakala and taking a helicopter tour.

Thanks Trailblazers for sharing and demystifying wowie Maui.

Martial Mechanics is a great book for those practicing or who are thinking about practicing martial arts. While the book focuses on striking techniques, I think the message of proper posture and use of the entire entire body ( esp. abdomen ) transcends into all martial disciplines. I found the chapter on breathing techniques ( which is rarely taught properly ) really useful.

This is a very good book for anyone thats into the martial arts. I read the other book by this same artist (author) & it was very good also. This one was probable better written than the first.

Martial Mechanics is an innocuous title for an immensley powerful book! I am a student of the martial arts for 23 years and fortunately a practitioner of YiLi Chuan in the 1980's. Even though I am no longer officially affiliated, I was a student of a wonderful instructor of YiliChuan, a senior student of Master Phillip Starr. What Sifu Starr has done is to deliver a timeless, authentic, and ultimately practical skill set, and useful guides to put your martial art, whatever system that may be, as fundamentals are universal to any good art worth it's salt, in alignment with the soundest of martial principles. This stuff is GOLD! If you are a beginner, intermediate or advanced practitioner, this book is literally a treasure, a workbook, and a glimpse into what real martial arts look like, and when putting the principles into practice, what they feel like on the giving and receiving ends. These fundamentals I was privy to when I was just getting my "martial feet" wet so-to-speak, and those that have these skills intact, in my expereince are few and far between in West Texas certainly, and in many other locales too. I highly and exuberantly recommend this tome of martial transformation, as I am recommending this book to both students and friends alike. "When one goes to the well of knowledge, drink deeply or drink not at all." Drink Deeply my brethren! Drink deeply and get this book. I await the advanced volume with an expectant heart. Thank You Sifu Starr.

Sifu Starr has done it againg! Martial Mechanics is a stand alone work, that lives in any genre; thus making it a classic for the ages! Anyone exspousing to "work smarter, not harder" would grow by leaps and bounds. Martial Mechanics is suitable and highly recommended for all combat arts. I personally study Japanese bujutsu and have studied the Brazillian brand. I highly recommend this book to grapplers/submission wrestlers! If think I am bullshidoing you, go read chapters 8,10 and 11! As matter of fact be a blessing to someone and provide a copy of Martial Mechanics for them. I can promise you, they would be the better for it! Peace!

Martial Mechanics is a good introduction to martial arts basics, a good reminder of what's important for those who have trained awhile, and is good material to supplement the syllabus of teachers of the MAs. Sprinkled liberally with anecdotes and humor, the book is easy to read and contains many excellent photographs to illustrate the points being made. While written from an internal martial artist's slant, I found it easy enough to substitute my external training/practice and keep going (for example, when the idea of reverse breathing is mentioned). The material on posture and alignment equaling power, relaxation adding to speed, and how force is generated, are especially bright spots in the book. I would recommend this book to all practicing or aspiring martial artists.

This book is a very useful tool for any aspiring athlete. Some of it is obvious and some it is quarky but altogether it is very useful. And I'm certain that if one applies these techniques you will see big gains. This book helped me understand my emotions as they relate to my sport. And it gave me ways to be a tough thinker and a actor. Everyone knows its important to try and be tough but not everyone knows how. This book has just about everything you need to know to take you game to the next level.

If your short on time skip through and just read chapters 1,7,9,11, 14 and 15. Theres 18 chapters total.

This book provides some great "food for thought" for practitioners of any sport, be it a team or an individual sport. You do not have to believe every word or make all the written exercises the author proposes; just read and think. At least, you will approach the "mental game" in a new way.

Extremely helpful "how to" book for becoming mentally tough. Unlike other sports pysche books, this one tells you very specific things to do to improve concentration, focus and most important, resiliency. Think of this as a cookbook of recipes for creating the appropriate mental response at the right time.

All I can say is that my husband a college baseball coach of 35 yrs thought this book was so important he sent it to the Cubs trainer and the pitching coach for the Padres!

This is a pretty good, easy read. It doesn't hit you with a lot of scientific mumbo-jumbo that you'll never understand. Instead, it gives you a basic, common-sense approach to improving the mental aspect of your game. The author shows how the physical world and the emotional world are related, and how being stronger mentally can help you perform better in your sport.

It is not geared towards any one sport, but rather it is geared to athletes in general.

I have to say I'm not sure if texts on atmospheric dynamics get better than this. Physics books in general, in fact, rarely provide an understanding of phenomena that is so concise, intuitive, and yet mathematically robust. I highly recommend it for children, as a gift, and for pleasure reading.

I also very seriously recommend it as a graduate textbook. Five stars all the way.

This book, often simply referred to as "Holton", has been roundly cursed by undergraduates since it was first published. I know, because I was one of them. However, as the years went by, and as the number of classes requiring Holton as a text went by, I realized two things. First, that this book was not meant to hold your hand through all the derivations. It requires a competent instructor who can use Holton as a detailed companion to rigorous coursework. This book is NOT for the average person who wishes to study alone. The second thing is that this book was written to fill a gap. There were no similar atmospheric dynamics texts. As a consequence, it must cover a large amount of material in a rather small, college textbook-sized space. It does this well. Yes, the author's writing style is dry to the extreme, and yes, physical explanations are often lacking. However, if you have access to a competent professor, neither of these are problems. One final thought... as we call the book simply "Holton" remember that Frankenstein's monster is often called simply "Frankenstein", but we will leave comparisons to the reader - and to the author!

it's a very analytic book; it's strongly related to anaysis. all the models are very well explaned; perhaps there is not a good relationship between models and pratical meteorology. phenomena are quite 'hidden' by equations, and only a good experienced physicist has the tools to extract the pratical approach deriving from model behaviours.
however it remains a 'must' for meteorologists.

Renato Medini

when i was a student, i used to think, like many other reviewers, that the book is extremely dry. but now as a researcher in atmospheric-oceanic dynamics, i realise that the book is useful in explaining the most essential and elementary theories behind the dynamics one can encounter in meteorology or climate dynamics.

use the book as a reference and revision of elementary concepts. if you encounter a process you need to understand in your research, this is the book which will tell you the basics. then you go on and learn more from journal articles and your own research.

this new edition of the book, especially with the matlab models, makes studying with it more fun because you can visualise the dynamics and play with the m-files yourself.

This book, in my opinion, is the most valuable book on dynamical aspects of the atmosphere insofar, especially from pedagogical point of views. As a foreign student, I understand well Holton's writings. Simple but very concise sentences, no wordy explanations. The first 3 chapters provide you the basic equations used in meteorology and their common approximations. The next 5 chapters, to me, are the most interesting chapters. They give you wide range of knowledge from boundary layer, synoptic scale phenomena, to instabilities. Equations are of great usefulness because THEY bring into the light physical contents of the dynamics of the atmosphere. To me, any analytical equation and its explicit solution provide us a more complete understanding than numerical models do (because you never know some unpredictable behaviour of numerical solutions). So, try to understand carefully the simplest cases that Holton selected. This gives you a lot of deeper understandings. Chapters 9 to 11 provide the dynamics of meso- to large-scale circulations. You will see why the Hadley circulation descends around 35N in very clear way. However, simple Poisson eqn with the argument of "positive forcing, negative solution" that is applied throughout the text should be paid especial attention because this conclusion is not always true. As a whole, the contents, explanations and derivations will be very well constructed if you see the main point of each section.
To get to the heart of this book, read and derive all the skips in Holton's derivations. The gaps are not too hard to fill out in math but require some thinking. DO ALL OF THE EXERCISES at the end by yourself and you will double your knowledge. For any math-related physical book, transparent derivations are the first thing you should figure out, physical explanations will follow subsequently. From my experience, people tend to skip any chapter what they thought they knew it already. If you apply this method here, you may be in trouble. Read carefully the first 5 chapters, understand approximations used in the each situation. Simply apply equations without judgments of their assumptions will take you into the nightmare.

I give this book 5 stars +. It is really classic....

There are many books on self defense or martial arts that you can whip through without any engagement. Not so with this book. If you are truly interested in applying your martial arts in a self defense situations, then you should buy this book, carefully study it and above all think about it. When thinking, the must important aspect should be how the advice in this book can and should be applied to your own martial art training. If you are a teacher of martial arts, you owe it to your students to integrate this information into your classes.
As a person who respects the advice and knowledge found in Loren Christensen and Marc MacYoung's works, I would add Sgt. Miller's book and any future books of his to the must have stack.

Most people, even those who train in some sort of martial arts, never experience real violence.
Sgt Miller is someone who lives, and survives on a daily basis, in a very violent world. In this book, he draws on his real world experience to paint a picture of what your typical martial arts teacher can not show you.

I am a teacher of Yoshinkan Aikido, a strongly police oriented martial art. Several of my teachers have had careers similar to Sgt Miller's. They passed along lessons gained from valuable experience that so many people in the martial arts world simply can not gain. I also have had several students who have been police officers and prison guards. What they have told me is pretty much just as explained by Sgt Miller.

So many times I hear people say "that style is no good" or "that would never work". But all they do is bash other styles and try to promote their own. This is not a book that promotes styles or the agenda of one martial arts organization. In that respect, it remains rather generic. What this author does is discuss real violence based on his years of experience in dealing first hand with the criminals who commit the violent acts. Sgt. Miller has enough experience in both the real world of criminal violence and the world of martial arts schools to deliver this exceptional work.

I strongly urge all martial art students of all styles who have never truly experienced violence and those who can not train in the law enforcement environment to read this book.

A MUST READ and MUST HAVE Book for Everyone's Library!

I must admit that I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I first picked this book up and browsed through it, and then five minutes later when I was standing in line to purchase it, I knew that I had a book well worth reading, keeping, and definitely worth reviewing and ultimately recommending.

I have been a practicing martial artist for over 25 years and during that time period have also been employed in numerous violence prone professions such as; law enforcement, special duty aide for a state mental hospital, bouncer, security officer, bodyguard, casino security officer, among others, and can personally attest to a lot, if not most, of the things that the author speaks about in this book. And in that capacity, he is "dead on" with pretty much everything he is saying in this book. Having that in mind, I decided to do this review citing a little bit of information about each individual chapter of this truly remarkable book.

Please keep in mind that there is some much useful information in this book that I have chosen to only pick one or two particular points that stood out for me from each chapter. So without further ado, let's get started.

CHAPTER ONE: THE MATRIX

The author explains in this section the difference between what you may think a self-defense situation really is, and what a self-defense situation actually is. He uses a pretty good system to show this which he calls the "Tactical Matrix." A really good section, but a little hard to really explain without going into a bit longer explanation than what I can realistically put in this review.

CHAPTER TWO: HOW TO THINK

I guess the best way to summarize this chapter is as follows; it teaches you to take off the rose colored glasses and get rid of all your preconceived notions concerning violence and to open your mind and eyes to the true reality that, for the most part, has eluded the vast majority of people regardless of profession or walk of life.

CHAPTER THREE: VIOLENCE

The discussion and explanation of the "Monkey Dance" is of and by itself perhaps the single most important thing that you could take away from this book other than the "Permission" section. I also enjoyed the sections dealing with "chemical cocktails," which you really must read in order to fully understand what I am referring to.

CHAPTER FOUR: PREDATORS

The author describes a variety of types of predators and the things they think and do. It really should be a wake up call to all of those people that think that all criminals are misunderstood and had a bad upbringing. That maybe they do have some good in them. Sure they do, I'll bet Adolf Hitler was kind to his mother too, but not so kind to over 12 million people he murdered. Some people are just plain evil, no ifs ands or buts about it.

CHAPTER FIVE: TRAINING

The author brought up some very good points in this section concerning the various types of training that is most common and their relative shortfalls when it comes to their effectiveness and/or applying them in a self-defense situation.

Personally, I would have to say that the best way to teach an individual how to get the most out of any and all methods of training, is simply this, "Put anything and everything you do into the proper perspective in relation to the possible benefits it may or may not have in a particular situation."

For example; I don't think anyone would argue with me that non-contact point sparring in and of itself is for the most part useless for self-defense. However, some of the principles are effective and should be utilized as much as possible in a self-defense situation like the principle of hitting your opponent without getting hit yourself.

CHAPTER SIX: MAKING PHYSICAL DEFENSE WORK

I really enjoyed the "Go Button" and "Permission" sections and really see the relevance of both principles in more than just self-defense. I also enjoyed the bus stop story which the author retells concerning a situation he found himself it that he actually made worse through errors he committed on his own part.

CHAPTER SEVEN: AFTER

This section covers the consequences of dealing with the after effects of violence and what you can do to deal with them. This is a very good section and one that shouldn't be overlooked or glossed over.

I really can't say enough good things about this book and the very solid information that is contained within its pages. The author is very credible and although I don't agree with 100% of what he says, I do agree with 90+% of it, and the other 10-% I also agree with, however with just some slight variations and/or modifications.

I highly recommend that you purchase, read, and reread this book. You won't be disappointed!

Shawn Kovacich
Martial Artist/Author of the Achieving Kicking Excellence series.

THIS BOOK IS A MUST! You need it as a Martial Arts student, a Martial Arts instructor, a bouncer, a cashier working second shift. Your mom needs this book! Got a daughter away in school? She needs this book! Anyone concerned about violence and how it may (and will) affect them and their loved ones, needs to read this book!

From the moment I started to read this book I wanted to share it with the world.

I knew what was wrong with my training early on as a Martial Artist and could not convey it to my fellow students. Instructors? Forget it! It's like telling an enviromentalist that carbon offsets are a crock. In some ways martial arts are a religion and training is the ritual of worship... regardless of the end product.

You see the truth from the moment Miller begins to speak to you. In a very few moments he hammers home some very sobering realities THAT YOU NEED TO KNOW!

Knowing the lay of the land before you is a major step towards surviving a violent encounter. This book strips away all pretenses. It leaves you "eyes wide open" and prepared to survive.

Please, do yourself two favors: 1) Read this book. 2) Pass it on.

This is one of the best books on self preservation studies that I have found. The author's knowledge and experience dealing with the wolves of the world and his ability to communicate this information to us all is impressive. I could go on and on, however, just buy the book and read it again and again. Digest the information and incorporate it into your daily life.